Interactive Exploration and Visualization Using MetaTracts extracted from Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites.

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Computational Engineering
• Image Analysis

Background:

• Analyzing the internal structure of carbon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) is crucial for understanding material properties.
• Low-resolution X-ray computed tomography (XCT) scans present challenges in visualizing and extracting individual fiber bundles.
• Existing methods struggle with the low visibility of fibers in such scans.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce MetaTracts, a novel workflow for the extraction and visualization of fiber bundles from low-resolution XCT scans of CFRPs.
• To develop an interactive tool for exploring and analyzing these extracted fiber bundles.
• To enable robust identification and analysis of fiber architecture in complex woven structures.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing a coarse integral curves approach to trace sections of individual fiber bundles, termed MetaTracts.
• Implementing a two-step clustering method (orientation then proximity) to group extracted fiber bundle sections.
• Generating volumetric and surface models of fiber bundles for further analysis and visualization.

Main Results:

• Successfully extracted and visualized individual fiber bundles from low-resolution XCT scans of CFRPs.
• Demonstrated the effectiveness of the two-step clustering approach in organizing fiber bundle data.
• Validated the MetaTracts workflow on real-world datasets, showing robust performance.

Conclusions:

• MetaTracts provides an effective and robust solution for extracting and visualizing fiber bundles in CFRPs, even from challenging low-resolution XCT data.
• The developed interactive tool facilitates detailed exploration and analysis of material microstructure.
• This method advances the understanding of fiber architecture in composite materials.